Tool Cabinet from plywood

[Danny Thompson]

I sent the tool cabinet for my dad's garage to his house for final finishing. On September 3 I posted a question about 1/2" plywood shelves in a Garage Storage Cabinet. You provided a good bit of valuable advice and feedback. If you follow that thread--Garage Storage Cab - 1/2" ply shelves?" in the Design forum--you can see the design has come a long way.

Quick summary:
- Two cabinets--top and bottom--of equal dimension.
- Basic box frame based loosely on Jan Zoltowski's "Quick-to-Make Tool Cabinet" except butt jointed, rather than finger jointed. Brad nailed and glued with Titebond II (the blue stuff), with screws added to reinforce the top-to-side and bottom-to-side joints. (Dropped the idea of biscuits primarily due to cost.)
- Mounted on casters, to allow the free flow of air below.
- The 2" deep frame on the top cabinet door, and the inner door are meant to accommodate hangers for tools. We'll work on those once we get the cabinet(s) to my dad's house.
- Oak guides for the upper cabinet trays.
- 3/4" ply shelves, no edging, screwed to cleats that were screwed to the sides and back.
- Replaced the bottom shelves with 3 drawers mounted on 100 lb. heavy duty full extension guides. (My first adventure into drawer making.)

Thanks everyone for your input.

Danny

[Garth Keel]

You finished up with a really fine cabinet. :)

[Grant Morris]

Looks good. My only concern would be the faces of the drawers. It looks like it would be very easy to break the faces off of the drawer sides...

[Danny Thompson]

Good catch, Grant. I should make clear that the faces are "false fronts". Even so, there is a chance of breakage or warpage. We thought we would load the drawers and give them a gentle test. If they bend, we are going to add some full-height brackets, made of 3/4" ply, that attach to the inside of the sides and extend up to the top of the faces.

[Jim Kountz]

Nice tool cabinet, should give you years of service!

[frank shic]

i like the shallow drawer boxes on the bottom. although you can't pile stuff towards the sides, that's actually a good thing for me so that i don't wind up digging through a bunch of junk trying to find what i'm looking for. it also makes the entire space more accessible. plus it makes boring for metabox drawers much easier if i stick to just one height.

[Danny Thompson]

Frank,

Exactly.

The drawers started as shelves behind a door, then sliding shelves behind a door, then sliding shelves with a lip behind a door, then sliding shelves with a lip and a drawer front, no door. Sliding to increase access to items in the back. Lipped to prevent items from rolling out. Drawer front to increase storage depth.

And all the jigging and cuts were the same for each of the drawers. In fact, they were very similar to those for the trays up top.

[glenn bradley]

Good catch, Grant. I should make clear that the faces are "false fronts". Even so, there is a chance of breakage or warpage. We thought we would load the drawers and give them a gentle test. If they bend, we are going to add some full-height brackets, made of 3/4" ply, that attach to the inside of the sides and extend up to the top of the faces.

Looks great Danny. Very nice job. Here's another idea for your tall drawer fronts as far as support (lower left drawer in the pic):

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=54206&d=1167872154

[Bill Brehme]

Very nice! That looks like a design that I could make some use of in my shop (need storage, junk lying all over the place :o ). Only have 1/2" OSB for the time being... Would that work?:confused: Nah, would look like crap, nevermind... :rolleyes:

[Danny Thompson]

Ah, I see. Bracing. Nice idea.